Collaborating with Israel Gohberg: Some Personal Thoughts

Abstract

The above questions are taken from the transcription of the Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar — ’You and Your Research’ given by Hamming, the creator of error correcting codes, in 1986. These are fundamental questions every mathematician should ask himself. Working with Israel Gohberg is being at the center where the main problems in operator theory and linear system theory are created and developed. I am fortunate to have been working with Israel since 1985 and to this very day. Thanks to the opportunity Rien Kaashoek is giving me, I would like to discuss in these pages some aspects of this collaboration. Each collaboration between two mathematicians is certainly unique in its kind, and, like a living organism, evolves in time. My work and interactions with Israel had a definite impact at all stages of my career, and these pages are a modest tribute to this fact.

Earl Katz Chair in Algebraic System Theory